


Red Widow

by LavenderJam



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Conspiracy, F/M, Funeral Sex, Other People's Grief, Poison, They're playing with fire and loving every second of it, references to murder, they are Bad People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:36:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29738856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderJam/pseuds/LavenderJam
Summary: They’d made love so zealously that her moans might well have been ragged misery torn from her throat, and then they’d sprawled on the floor together, naked and beaming, their skin luminous in the candlelight, and begun to craft the eulogy that Asriel would read at the wake not a week later. He’d protested at first, thinking it a ludicrous suggestion.“If you want us both dead,” he’d said, “I’d rather you slip me the rest of the cyanide. Preferably in a glass of good Tokay.” But as she’d reeled off her reasoning her logic had become less absurd, the fact being that their child was going to enter the world before the leaves turned later that year, and they didn’t have the luxury of time to create a less jarring illusion of a clandestine friendship between their two households. They needed his sudden appearance in her life to be sympathetic, rather than suspicious, after all.(Asriel and Marisa behave badly at Edward Coulter’s funeral.)
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 14
Kudos: 27





	Red Widow

**Author's Note:**

> “Some little girls grow up wanting ponies; I always wanted to be a widow.” – Luther, season three, episode four 
> 
> “My lover’s got humour  
> She’s the giggle at a funeral.” – Take Me to Church, Hozier 
> 
> “For male widow spiders, mating is an infamously dangerous activity. In these species, the large females will often devour the smaller males during sex—hence the “widow” in their names. In some cases, the female catches the male while he's trying to escape.” – National Geographic

“Edward Coulter,” Asriel said, glancing solemnly at the coffin to his right, “was a great man.”

He bowed his head, as if stifling some profound emotion, his eyes skirting over the rest of the eulogy that he and Marisa had penned together some days before, cackling while they did so. He let the mournful pause gestate and sniffed for good measure, then raised his fierce eyes to the crowd and took a deep, sombre breath.

There was scarcely a single empty space in the ornate oak pews, the view before him an assortment of ebony outfits, black suits and black dresses and delicate black veils amalgamating into a trembling tableau of sorrow, the occasional string of pearls and immaculate white glove the only respite from the sea of grief that he had no choice but to survey. He could hear the thick sniffs, the pained whispers, the rustle of a purse as a handkerchief was produced and seeping eyes were dabbed. The whole scene was so bland that Asriel felt a yawn rise within him, though Stelmaria’s low growl was a sharp reminder not to lose focus, so he forced it back down and continued to speak.

The end of this charade was tantalisingly close, and it was that thought that helped him remain on task. It had begun several weeks ago, when Marisa had arrived at his house in such a state of distress that he’d assumed someone was already dead. He’d almost laughed in her face when she revealed her predicament, speaking of the foetus as if it were a parasite whose sole intention was to strip her for parts, bemused that a new life forged from their love could be such a cause for alarm. She’d continued ranting and raving for some time, cursing him (well, certain parts of him) until her cheeks were lively with the flush of warm blood, but it had only taken one mention of cyanide for her glare to melt into a grin. He’d procured the vial with ease – given that she would be the one to administer the fatal dose, it seemed only right that he obtain the substance, this endeavour a joint project, after all, as so many things would be from now on – and given it to her the next time they’d met, unable to think straight as she delicately sniffed the poison and then rolled the cool glass of the bottle over her bottom lip, giving him to no choice to kiss the fresh chill away. Then he’d waited.

The news arrived as a headline not three days later: Edward Coulter, king’s advisor, celebrated member of parliament and faithful Magisterium devotee dead of a heart attack at only forty, leaving behind a distraught young widow and a legion of grieving constituents and colleagues. What followed soon wended its way into his ears, the otherwise aloof lord suddenly ravenous for gossip, each snippet of information a sweet pear drop on his tongue. A chorus of astonished voices explained how Mrs Coulter had begged to avoid an autopsy, despite his young age, because she couldn’t bear the thought of his body being desecrated that way; how she’d barred visitors from their – well, her – home as she grappled with the most acute paroxysms of her grief; how even the servants had been dismissed, the house solemn and empty, aside from Marisa herself, alone and blindsided by loss.

Later that night, Edward’s corpse still cooling on the undertaker’s slab, Asriel had found the window to the study slightly ajar, as he’d known it would be, and his lover reclined on the chaise, as he’d hoped to find her. She’d been dressed in a silk slip, black as coal, a dress rehearsal for today, perhaps, and swirling what looked like a jenniver cocktail in her hand. It was only after he’d plucked the glass from her fingers, planning to kiss her with the sharp tang of clean spirit on his lips, that he remembered why they’d concocted this whole scheme in the first place, the bubbles of the carbonated water tickling the back of his throat and making him blink. Then he’d laughed, and kissed her anyway, of course, burying his face into the curve of her neck until his tongue was sated with the more satisfying taste of her sweat.

They’d made love so zealously that her moans might well have been ragged misery torn from her throat, and then they’d sprawled on the floor together, naked and beaming, their skin luminous in the candlelight, and begun to craft the eulogy that Asriel would read at the wake not a week later. He’d protested at first, thinking it a ludicrous suggestion. “If you want us both dead,” he’d said, “I’d rather you slip me the rest of the cyanide. Preferably in a glass of good Tokay.” But as she’d reeled off her reasoning her logic had become less absurd, the fact being that their child was going to enter the world before the leaves turned later that year, and they didn’t have the luxury of time to create a less jarring illusion of a clandestine friendship between their two households. They needed his sudden appearance in her life to be sympathetic, rather than suspicious, after all. He’d still been unsure, but then she’d climbed into his lap and pressed her lips to his neck and her breasts to his bare chest and at once his uncertainties had sloughed away, for there could be no idea too outlandish, too risky, if it ensured that they could be together like this, wild and passionate and exultant, for the rest of their days, if not beyond.

Now, standing before a sea of pious eyes, the eulogy in progress, he deplored, not for the first time, how the feel of her lips ringing his cock made even the most obscene of schemes sound reasonable.

“He was a devoted husband, a passionate champion of the people’s will, a devout follower of the Authority’s blessed teachings and a great friend to us all. His tragic, untimely death will weigh on each of us, of that I have no doubt, but we can be comforted by the knowledge that, with his infinite wisdom and compassion to guide him, the Authority will have called Edward to ascend into His Kingdom for pure and righteous reasons. The Lord, after all, has always moved in mysterious ways.” The crowd nodded, and a few of the attendees even glanced skywards. Asriel stifled an eyeroll.

As he droned on, recounting endless, tedious details of Edward Coulter’s insipid existence, endearing anecdotes that only a true friend would know, peppered onto the page by a naked and devious Marisa several nights prior, Asriel found his eyes wandering to a veiled figure in the front pew. He’d been ordered not to stare at her, part of her illustrious script for the service that she’d drilled into them both, but he couldn’t help himself, flicking his gaze to her as one might flick their bare eyes to the sun, ignoring impassioned warnings of scorched retinas just to get a glimpse of its brilliance.

Marisa sat elegantly in the front row, her hands folded in her lap, her gaze locked to the wreath of cream trumpet lilies that adorned the gleaming black box to his side. Her dress was modest, high-necked and long-sleeved, the black silk cotton vivid and shimmering. He could hardly meet her eyes, her veil positioned deftly over her face, though her dæmon hadn’t looked away from Stelmaria since the vigil had begun. Her face was pale, covered with the only the faintest dusting of powder, which left the soft rose of her lips uncovered, sweet and full and begging to be captured by his. His mouth began to water. Stelmaria lashed her tail against his ankle, another warning.

“And as we lay his body to rest today, I would encourage everyone to reflect on the great wisdom and memories that Edward bestowed upon us all during his short life. I know that I shall always be grateful for the gifts that he gave me.” He’d added this line that morning, unbeknownst to his lover, and the deviation from her script made Marisa raise her head. He caught her eyes for a mere millisecond, enough to see the corner of her lip quirk up, the ghost of a smile. He bowed his head again and pressed his lips together, hiding his own smirk.

He’d hoped that would be the end of it, his final task to maintain a stoic expression as the coffin was carried from the altar and dumped in the earth, but he’d forgotten the Church’s impressive propensity to make their death rituals so prolonged that you too prayed to be struck down and placed six feet below ground. He hoped Marisa knew that there was no other woman in this universe for whom he’d participate in such a tedious farce. After the vigil was the mass, the feel of the stale cracker rough and gluey in his mouth, then the burial, and then the reception, Marisa’s street a sea of black vehicles, the passengers on the zeppelins passing overhead no doubt wondering if Mayfair had been overrun by a plague of scuttling black beetles.

Asriel tried to remain inconspicuous as the reception dripped on, accepting each condolence offered with as much grace as he could muster, for he’d just lost a close, personal friend, of course, and therefore had no choice but to welcome the dreary thoughtfulness or raise the wrong eyebrow, but with each minute that passed his fantasies of heading upstairs and burying his face in his lover’s pillow became more and more vivid. Marisa, of course, showed no such signs of boredom; she was born for a performance like this, Asriel thought, covering his smile with his hand.

She was perched on the burgundy leather of the sofa, adeptly deflecting each glass of wine that was placed in her hand with a pained smile and wet eyes, her veil discarded and her sweet, youthful face on display. Every mention of Edward’s name had another crystal tear sliding down her face, and her dæmon was playing his part exquisitely, his golden fur somehow reduced to a dull ochre, his shoulders hunched and eyes wistful and wide. He sat in her lap, clinging to her like an infant might cling to its mother, as if he’d never been in greater need of tender care. The truth was that Asriel had never seen the vicious thing happier than the past week, his sharp teeth bared into what must have been a grin every time Stelmaria and Asriel appeared through the window, even crawling into Asriel’s lap unprompted one evening, nuzzling his face into the man’s breast and preening as Asriel’s strong fingers raked through his fur. This downtrodden, destitute creature bore no resemblance to that joyful little dæmon, and Asriel revelled in her masterful deception, thrilled to see her most conniving skills put to work in service of their shared aims.

He’d have been content to simply hang back and watch her, the least objectionable way to while away the time until the ruse of his grief was complete, but his starring role meant that he was pulled into the centre of the charade. A woman was wailing beside Marisa, his lover’s hand trapped between two wrinkled palms, and he’d been beckoned over to gravely accept compliments on his earlier oration. “The eulogy was beautiful, so beautiful,” she was saying, old and flaxen-haired and cursed with same rosy red cheeks that Edward had sported. “Such a wonderful tribute to my – my – my dear son.” A sob rang out through the room, absorbed by the polite chatter of the rest of the crowd. Marisa nodded, wiping another a tear from her ducts before it had the chance to fall. “Thank you, Lord Asriel,” the woman said. 

“My pleasure,” he replied, without thinking, and Marisa shot him a faint glare.

“I didn’t realise you and my son were so close,” she continued, sniffing.

“Yes, few did. Living such public lives, it’s nice to keep one’s closest friendships private, is it not? We’d lost touch for a while – you know how he could be, so committed to his work – and of course, Marisa here – but we reconnected these past few years after a chance encounter at the palace. By the end, well, we shared everything.”

Marisa choked on her water, coughing a little, fresh tears springing to her red-rimmed eyes.

“Poor dear,” Edward’s mother said, rubbing her hand across Marisa’s back. “Such a terrible shock for us all.”

“Terrible,” Marisa murmured, wiping her mouth. “Dreadful. So unexpected.” Stelmaria’s whiskers twitched.

The silence hung between them for a minute, the only sounds the general ambiance of the reception, the clink of cups against saucers and noses blown into tissues and the respectful chatter of distant colleagues watching the clock. Marisa opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. “Excuse me,” she said, her voice trembling, the monkey’s arms latched around her neck as she fled from the room.

Edward’s mother looked as if she might follow, but then another of the attendees began to tap a fork against his cup, proposing a toast. “I’ll make sure she’s alright,” Asriel found himself saying, giving the woman’s shoulder a gentle touch. “You shouldn’t miss these kind words.”

“How generous you are,” she said, snivelling, and he managed to retain his solemn expression until they were in the hallway, and at which point he couldn’t help shooting Stelmaria a smirk.

He glanced up the staircase, knowing it would be improper to follow her into her bedroom and therefore wanting to do nothing more, but before he’d placed his foot on the first step Stelmaria’s nose was twitching. “This way,” she said, and started padding down the hallway into the belly of the house.

He followed his dæmon’s acute senses to the door of the study, Marisa’s scent always the trail she identified most swiftly in a breeze. Cold spring sunlight was dappling across the room when he entered, a few specks of dust dancing in the jagged sunbeams. She was facing away from him, resting her hands against the desk, her dark figure a stark contrast to the bright light, the scarlet rug, the colourful leather bindings of the books that lined the walls. Black shoes, black stockings, black dress, and dark, raven hair, a night-ghast that had tumbled out of his dreams and materialised into something real, something tangible. He locked the door quietly at Stelmaria’s insistence and then began to walk over to her.

Her shoulders were shaking as he approached, and the monkey was nowhere to be seen. For a moment, Asriel wondered if he’d misread their interaction in the lounge, and that she’d truly bolted from the reception to weep. He frowned.

When he reached out to touch her shoulder, however, and she swivelled her head towards him, her eyes were dry and sparkling. One hand was clasping the monkey to her chest, the shine back in his radiant fur, and the other was pressed over her mouth to stop cackles spooling from her lips. She was laughing.

He began to laugh too, then, and sidled up behind her, placing his hands on her hips and tugging on her earlobe with his teeth. “You really do have my _deepest_ condolences, Mrs Coulter,” he said, warming the shell of her ear with his breath and grinding against her. She bowed her head, exposing her creamy neck.

“Thank you, Lord Asriel,” she said. “I’m sure you were _devastated_ to hear the news.”

The monkey leapt from her arms to the desk to the floor, then pounced on Stelmaria, who rolled gleefully onto her back and welcomed him onto her belly, his golden fur aflame in the buttery sunbeam. Asriel pressed his lips to Marisa’s skin while Stelmaria licked the fingers the monkey was pushing between her jaws, and his lover arched her back and crushed her backside against his erection in response. He smiled into her hair, her curls like silk against his cupid’s bow. “Quite,” he said. “I’ve hardly been able to get out of bed in the morning.” They both smirked.

He let his fingertips meander up her torso as she rubbed herself against him, until his palms were clasping her breasts and his thumbs swiping over her nipples. She gasped and he began to stroke her more intensely, pinching and plucking and kneading until she was panting. She’d always enjoyed being touched like this, but now, flooded with hormones and tingling with sensitivity, the mere brush of her areolas would see her pupils blow out and her thighs quiver, the intoxicating marriage of pleasure and pain enough to have her soaking in seconds.

She let him continue until she was rasping and trembling, crushing herself against the desk in a weak attempt to provide some stimulation, then pulled her dress up around her waist and shoved her stockings to her knees. She was about roll her lace drawers down her thighs when Asriel shoved her hands away, running his fingertips over the smooth skin of her backside and then the rough grain of her underwear, enjoying the texture of the material against his callouses, the exquisite transition from silk to scratch and back again. On another day, he might have torn the underwear in two, but today he reached around her and picked up the gleaming silver letter opener, embossed with an elaborate _EC_ monogram. Such tools would be typically be too blunt for this task, but he knew that Marisa had had this one sharpened before she’d placed a bow on it for her ex-husband’s last birthday – for efficiency, of course. He made two cuts, one horizontal, the other vertical, let the lace unspool and then deftly swept the useless garment to the floor. Marisa’s breath hitched as the coarse fabric slid through her folds, her hands splayed wide on the desk’s rich wood, like the neat radii of a spider’s web.

He swallowed his groan as they joined, though Marisa didn’t bother, and the sound of her moan, guttural and gleeful, made his cock pulse. He began a smooth rhythm, the soft skin of her hip like the downy underside of a rose petal as he clutched her, his other palm pressed against the infinitesimal swell of her abdomen in an attempt to drive himself deeper. Her rasps became sweeter and harsher all at once, and Asriel felt his thighs start to shake.

As he continued to thrust into her, a thin sheen of sweat coating his forehead and flushing his neck, she continued to moan, and when she leaned forward onto her tiptoes and the head of his cock hit her cervix, she cried out. He was too close to speak intelligibly, but his hand was pressed against her lips before he’d had time to think about it, and the feel of his index finger being sucked into her mouth and then clamped between her vicious teeth was enough to push him over the edge. He crushed her into the desk as he came, and the slick friction of the wood against her swollen cunt was enough to take her with him, his finger still gripped between her incisors, like the stopper of a bottle.

They stood there together for a few moments more, the sunlight warming their flushed faces, his hands stroking her reverently as they both panted. He whined as she pushed him out of her, getting a mere glimpse of her glistening thighs before she rolled up her stockings and smoothed down her dress. He thought of his semen soaking into the coal-silk of her tights, and grinned, while Stelmaria sniffed the air and growled pleasurably. Asriel tucked himself away and wrapped his arms around his lover, her scent suffusing his chest, musk and a metallic tang overlayed with blooms of rose and jasmine.

“I have to go back,” she said, and he nodded. The anguish of watching her walk away had disappeared as soon as he’d opened the newspaper and seen the blessed headline.

Marisa clicked her fingers at the monkey, who was still swooning in the heady mix of fresh sunshine and Stelmaria’s soft breast, but she only managed a few steps before turning around and rushing back to him. She clasped his cheeks in her palms and kissed him hungrily, as if wishing to imbibe him, to rip his head from his neck and swallow it whole. He closed his eyes and let her bewitch him with the deft swirls of her tongue, his hands on her hips once more, his thumbs swiping against her abdomen.

He waited for a few minutes before heading back to the lounge, sharing a chuckle with Stelmaria as they pushed the desk back to its original position and wiped the smear of Marisa’s handprints from the polished wood. The reception was still well underway, and Marisa was already installed back in her preferred position, the centre of the melee, accepting a bouquet of crisp white roses and several handwritten cards with mournful aplomb. He fetched himself a cup of tea before slipping back into the crowd. Their dæmons kept glancing at each other, the monkey’s fur still dotted with stiff peaks where Stelmaria’s tongue had been lapping only minutes before, and Asriel placed a firm hand on her head to stop her rasps.

“And you’re certain you’re alright here by yourself?” a woman was saying, squeezing Marisa’s shoulder with her manicured nails, her pretty songbird-dæmon trying to engage the whimpering monkey in conversation. The fresh crowd of guests were cooing and fussing over his lover as if she were a child in need of care, rather than an exquisite viper whose venom could fell each one of them in turn without arousing any undesirable suspicion if she so chose. More fool them. He smirked into his teacup.

“It’s sweet of you to worry,” Marisa said, patting the woman’s hand. “But I think I need some time alone, to process the shock. I’m sure you all understand. And I’ve arranged to fly to Geneva next week, for a prolonged stay, I should think – it’s important to be with family at a time like this, wouldn’t you agree?” She let her eyes meet his for the briefest of moments, and Asriel’s lip twitched.

“Of course, of course,” the party nodded.

“And I’m sure Lord Asriel here can hold down the fort in your absence,” another guest said, his dæmon a solemn heron, beak long and bowed. “We were all very moved by your eulogy, sir.”

“That’s gracious of you,” he said. “But alas, I too am leaving Brytain next week, for some time, I’m afraid. I postponed my annual expedition after hearing the news but I cannot afford to wait any longer.”

A murmur swirled through the group, but it was dead before it had even sprung to life, Marisa dabbing her eyes with a tissue and pressing manicured fingers to her lips, a pantomime of grief. The crowd began to fuss over her again, and Asriel took that opportunity to gulp the rest of his tea, place the cup on the coffee table and get to his feet.

“Leaving so soon?” someone said, though not with suspicion.

“Unfortunately,” he said, Stelmaria effortlessly parting the crowd as she began to wander towards the door. “I have to catch the dawn zeppelin to Oxford tomorrow, ahead of sailing next week.”

He nodded at Marisa. “Once again, I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs Coulter. I do hope Geneva is restful.”

“Thank you, Asriel,” she said, as if the plain name was foreign on her tongue. “I’m so grateful for all your help. Today and this past dreadful week. I daresay none of this would have been possible without you.” Her wet eyes were glittering, in a manner he was certain only he could glean.

Then she burst into tears again, a welcome sign he should depart, and while the reception continued to fawn over the distraught, wailing widow he fetched his slate greatcoat from the closet and slipped out of the front door. He could have hailed a cab and been driven back to October House, but with the clean spring sunlight warming his face and the scent of new life whirling in the air, daffodils and crocuses and pearly snowdrops spattering the ground and blossom adorning the trees, he decided to walk, the muscles of his face soon straining under the breadth of his smile but unable to stop. He felt like he had all the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> This is so silly that it should be a crackfic, but I’m into it regardless. Masriel getting horny for each other at funerals will always be a genre of fic I enjoy. Let me know if you feel the same! And thanks for reading <3


End file.
